Your $250 3DS costs Nintendo about $100 to manufacture, says the research firm iSuppli.

Following a teardown of Nintendo’s new handheld machine and an analysis of the components therein, iSuppli has pegged the cost of manufacturing each 3DS, including packaging, at $103.25. Gamasutra, in its report on the findings, noted that this matches up almost exactly with a report by its sister company UBM TechInsights.

While other game hardware makers always tout the exact specifications of their devices to get hard-core gamers drooling over the numbers, Nintendo has been surprisingly reticent about 3DS’ innards. The Kyoto giant has refused to specify even the most basic facts about its new machine: the amount of RAM, the power of its CPU, even the amount of onboard storage for games and other user data.

The full report fills in a few of those gaps. ISuppli says the most expensive component, which it calls a “clever feat of engineering,” is the glasses-free 3-D display manufactured by Nintendo’s longtime hardware partner Sharp. The analysis puts the cost of the screen alone at roughly $33.

ISuppli notes that the cost of 3DS does not entail the cost of the software onboard the machine and any licensing or royalty costs that 3DS’ suite of built-in apps may incur. So Nintendo isn’t quite running away with $150 for every 3DS it sells. But that’s probably a good ballpark.

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